Beauty and the Beast / La belle et la bête (2014)

Plot summary (story synopsis): Failed businessman Le marchand (André Dussollier) is lost in a snowstorm and stumbles into a large ruined castle. Food, drink and jewels mysteriously appear before him. He eats his fill, loads up his horse with the gifts, and prepares to leave. 

On his way out he plucks a rose for his favorite daughter Belle (Léa Seydoux - Midnight in Paris, Blue is the Warmest Color, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol). This enrages his hidden benefactor, the hideous Beast (Vincent Cassel - Brotherhood of the Wolf, Black Swan) because while all the other items were gifts to Le marchand, the rose was not.

To pay for his crime of stealing the rose, the Beast forces Le marchand to be a captive in the castle. Loyal Belle takes his place instead. At first, Belle fears the monstrous-looking beast, but begins to get used to life in the ruined castle. She also has dreams of the castle's past, showing how the Beast - originally a prince - came to be cursed to become a monster.

Belle's debt-ridden brother Maxime (Nicolas Gob) notices the large jewel Belle brought with her on her one visit home. He leads his thuggish creditors to the castle, to loot the place.

***

Beauty and the Beast follows the standard fairytale too closely. In addition, there are cute dogs and two giant stone robots/monsters, but that's not enough to make the story interesting.

French director Christophe Gans has directed only 4 feature films over the past 20 years. But 3 of them - Crying Freeman, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Silent Hill - have been above-average movies with engaging storylines and gorgeous visuals.

Beauty and the Beast does have beautiful visuals - the enormous ruined castle, the menacing forest. Even Belle's crude backyard garden looks picture-perfect. But the lack of a strong story (from Gans and co-writer Sandra Vo-Anh) is fatal.

Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood was only loosely based on the old fairytale. She built an entirely different story on top of it. Gans should have done the same.

Gans doesn't even bother to explore the ramifications of his unambitious story. The Beast seems to have been made immortal by the spell. Does breaking the spell make him mortal again? Wouldn't that suck? Does the magical healing pool still work? Why not open it up to the public? Imagine the impact.

Lea Seydoux doesn't save the movie. She wears beautiful gowns, but actually looks more attractive in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and more charming in Midnight in Paris. (Despite having small parts in both movies.) Her character is one-dimensional and her love for the Beast is not developed enough to be believable. Vincent Cassel can't do much either with a weak script and from behind a wall of special effects.

Gans's other, better, movies were violent action/adventure adult entertainment. He should stay away from PG-13 Disney material. Or get Luc Besson to help him with scripts. Maybe both.